Email

Print

  Hydrokinetic News

DOE makes its largest ever investment in marine power

Among those receiving DOE funding, Irish firm Wavebob is working on a commercial-scale wave farm for US waters in 2013

The federal government has made its largest ever investment in marine energy technology, as part of a $37 million funding award that also supports hydropower development projects.

Aiming to speed up the generation of clean electricity from America’s oceans and rivers, the US Department of Energy included $10 million payouts to two tidal energy projects, one in Washington State and one in Maine.

Irish company OpenHydro Group will provide a one-megawatt tidal turbine system for the Public Utility District No.1 of Snohomish County, for deployment in Puget Sound.

And, on the other side of the country the Ocean Renewable Power Company will use its windfall to advance its tidal turbine project in its native Maine, where it has already generated grid-compatible power, (see this BrighterEnergy.org story).

Other projects benefiting in the funding round range from concept studies through to prototype development, as well as efforts to test technology in the water.

New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies, perhaps the most advanced US wave power company at the moment, has received $4.8 million toward its work developing a utility-scale wave farm off the coast of Oregon (see this BrighterEnergy.org story).

“This funding represents the largest single investment of federal funding to date in the development of marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies,” said US Energy Secretary Steven Chu as he announced the funding yesterday.

“These innovative projects will help grow water power’s contribution to America’s clean energy economy.”

Investment

America’s oceans and rivers represent a particularly promising energy source, according to the US Department of Energy, since many have large population centers nearby, offering demand for electricity.

The $37 million funding from the DOE is expected to lever in a significant amount of private investment.

Pennington company Ocean Power Technologies, Inc., will match its $2.4 million funding as it deploys its full-scale 150-kilowatt PowerBuoy in the Oregon Territorial Sea to collect two years of operating data. And, in a second project among this week’s DOE funding round, it will match an additional $2.4 million award for a project developing its design for a 500-kilowatt version of its PowerBuoy system.

Portland company Ocean Power Company will bring in an additional $11.1 million to boost its $10 million DOE funds to build, install and operate a commercial-scale array of five grid-connected TidGen Project devices on the seafloor in Cobscook Bay, off Eastport, Maine.

And, the OpenHydro project in Washington State will top up its $10 million award to $20.1 million as it deploys two 10-meter diameter Open-Center Turbines in Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound.

Testing

Among the array of innovative technologies being supported by the DOE funding round, other notable projects included Northwest Energy Innovations, based in Portland, Oregon, which was awarded just over $1.8 million for its $3 million program testing a floating point absorber wave energy device in a wave tank and controlled open seas.

Wavebob LLC, the Irish wave power developer which has its US office in Annapolis, Maryland, will receive $2.4 million to support a $4.7 million project developing and testing another kind of point absorber wave power device, the WEC-1 System.

The company has been testing its device in Ireland, and is preparing for a commercial-scale demonstration project that could be operating in US waters in 2013.